


if i don’t have you, at least i’ll still have me

by lilaclavenders



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Gen, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Canon, Viktor-centric fic, Viktor’s abandonment issues, Why did Vitya cut his hair?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 02:26:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18228653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaclavenders/pseuds/lilaclavenders
Summary: A lot of people look forward to the idealised trials and tribulations of adolescence, but a lot of people also forget that they don’t like change.Viktor is one of those people.





	if i don’t have you, at least i’ll still have me

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from: CYN - i’ll still have me
> 
> honestly this is a little bit personal, since i put a bit of myself into this vitya.

It’s been a week since the holidays have started and Viktor hasn’t left the house at all.

He’s not Russia’s beloved just yet, so Yakov still has his eyes on other potential winners, all lithe limbs and a dazzling light in their irises, which have yet to waver at the sound of the coach’s thunderous critiques. Their necks do not know the weight of a thousand gold medals, nor are they acquainted with the weight of the world on their shoulders yet. The youth are like the dawn, sunrise, reaching up and up until their world is alight. Grabbing the universe with both hands with enthusiastic, thoughtless naïvety.

Makkachin died yesterday, exactly a week before Viktor turns 18. He no longer has anyone to spend his birthday with. Makkachin, the poor girl, had grown old _far_ too quickly, which is deeply unfair because that means Viktor will have to grow up far too quickly as well. She was the only thing Viktor had brought with him from his mother’s house, his old home. The last thing that was holding him back from burying the word _family_ in an abandoned catacomb somewhere in the back of his mind forever.

His hair is so terribly long, and he yearns for someone to comb and braid it for him - his mother stopped doing it a long time ago. Viktor has no idea who sired him, but he wonders if his hair is the reason his mother loved him in the first place, since she’s always loved the way he kept it long. But now Lilia braids it for him, tighter and neater than he likes it since he’s _restless_ and needs to be _held_   _back_ sometimes.

Viktor blearily squints at his phone, a silly old brick of a phone he had saved up for with competition money, and wonders if his mother occasionally worries because she’s finally found nothing else to do.

She says:

 

> _It’s your birthday soon, Vitya - you should stop by._

 

Viktor’s mother now goes by the name of Alena Dubinsky. Viktor’s mother now wears floral maxi dresses and has stopped smoking. Viktor’s mother now has a part-time job as a florist and she no longer puts gold eyeshadow on her son’s eyelids before she goes on a date, a flimsy apology of sorts.

She adds, not even a minute later:

 

> _You should see Petra, she’s starting to walk!_

 

Most importantly, Viktor’s mother now has a new _family_.

Petra has her father’s smug grin and deep brown curls. Viktor can’t be too mad at her since she has their mother’s eye colour, the way the sea looks on a winter’s day in St. Petersburg, the richest blue you could find. Besides, it would be awfully immature of him to unnecessarily hate a child who hasn’t even seen a year pass by yet.

(So Viktor holds a grudge against her parents instead.)

An _unstoppable_ _force_ meets an _immovable_ _object_. So _Viktor_ takes it upon himself to complete that _family_ by removing himself from it, and gives himself the world instead.

He doesn’t say he’s the same age his mother was when she gave him the worst gift of all: the burden of existence. He doesn’t say he’s lonelier than he’s ever been, even though he technically has more family than he’s ever had, a bigger audience than he’s ever had. He doesn’t say that he misses the way she used to sing _Super_ _Trouper_ as she cooked, with a reedy, breathy and soft sound of voice.

Instead, he replies with:

 

> _Sorry, I can’t stop by. I’m training for the upcoming Grand Prix. But thank you for the birthday wishes._

 

Alena Dubinsky inadvertently teaches her son that waiting for anything good in life, like happiness, is a gruelling task and something you’ll become a completely different person for. So thank _God_ Viktor’s learnt to be a chameleon for everyone’s he’s ever met, because he wouldn’t have been able to survive this far.

Everything falls into place.

Viktor grabs a pair of scissors, replaces the weight of his hair on his shoulders with the world. Here in the dark, the sun has yet to rise. ButViktor’s desperately clawing at the universe with both hands, believing he has nothing left to lose. Thoughtless naïvety indeed.

Viktor knows the sun rises later in the winter, but he stays up anyway, watching the way his messily cut hair almost looks gold in the light.

He feels something; it doesn’t feel like satisfaction nor an itch he has finally scratched. It’s a little bit like how his mother used to tell him about love not being the solution to your problems, where everything clicks into place like the movies. It doesn’t fix anything at all because you still want _more_.

 

* * *

 

 

Yakov stops by later. Viktor calmly reads a magazine about skating. He smiles and waves at Yakov as if nothing has changed.

“Vitya, what have you done now?”

Viktor chirps happily, with a smile far too big for his apartment. “I’ve been reading!” The first mistake he makes is reaching for a lock of his hair, only to find his fingers tangling themselves in dust and confusion. His grin does not waver.

The coach imagines his ex-wife’s indiscernible gaze and the twitch in her hands, when she realises she can no longer project her wishes to braid the hair of the child that could’ve been hers- _given_ _his_ _talents_ -anymore onto Viktor.

He spies Viktor’s silly brick of a phone on the table, lighting up with one new notification out of many. Yakov is unsure whether to be pleased (or not) at the fact he isn’t the only one Viktor ignores on a regular basis.

 

> _Vitya, you’re always welcome to visit Alexandr, Petra and I. You haven’t visited in a long time._

 

Yakov wonders if there’s such thing as being a visitor in your own family. Although, given his lengthy history with Lilia, his answer may lie nearer than originally thought.

Yakov had no idea what he was signing up for when taking Viktor under his wing. The boy displays so much dedication that it seemed as if he didn’t know how to split himself into half, blurring the lines of life and career into one. Yakov has also learnt that Viktor is unnervingly opaque, for all of his dramatics. This display may be the first crack in the wall, but you can’t see the stars from behind the moon even as she wanes.

The whole scene makes Yakov feel that slightly uncomfortable feeling he sometimes has when he’s around Viktor. It’s as if Viktor’s rehearsed how he should act, the _auteur_ of his own life. That boy has the air of an elderly man who has as many regrets as Yakov does. Yet, he’s childish, desperately refusing to let them weigh him down, even if that’s precisely what’s happening.

Yakov isn’t quite sure what makes Viktor happy. So he does the next best thing: he offers Viktor a few years of living as if he was, with gold medals, titles and an audience to constantly reinvent himself for. Besides, as foolish as it seems, Yakov cannot always watch Viktor, so he’ll make sure the world can, because that’s all a coach can do. A chameleon will bare himself transparent to the world when in a unfamiliar place, even though he’s trying to blend with everyone else to seem opaque.

Thoughtless naïvety, indeed.


End file.
